Bits and bytes
by outofmymindbackin5
Summary: What was only supposed to be a couple of oneshots, has gotten away from me and turned into a fic. Two military women from another dimension plus Transformers equals ? Warnings: human OC centered. Rating upped to T for future language. Title may change
1. Arrival and first contact

**Bits and Bytes**

Authors note, Disclaimer and OC info.

Feel free to skip over this, part 1 is below.

This is a bunch of interconnected one-shots and story bits based on reoccurring dreams and my weird imagination, they may not always be posted in chronological order.

One day I might actually make this into a fic with a plot... eventually... maybe... eh... doubt it...

Warning: this is mostly human OC centred. May contain bad language and violence later...

I don't own Transformers, Stargate (or any other shows, comics, games, etc,) that might end up mixed in, this is a work of fiction done solely for my own amusement and no money is being made from it.

As for the OC's in this, below is a very rough physical description of the two that (for the moment) make the most appearances.

Name: Mellie Cassidy

Nickname: Ellie, Ell

Gender: Female

Age: 35

Appearance:

Hair: (Natural color: blond) Currently peppermint pink, shoulder length in high ponytail

Eyes: Light blue

Skin: Fair, lightly tanned

Height: 5'8"

Name: Megan Richards

Nickname: Megs, Meg

Gender: Female

Age: 36

Appearance:

Hair: Dark brown with purple streaks, in a pixie style cut

Eyes: Right eye brown, Left eye Hazel

Skin: Sun bronzed, slight freckling

Height: 6'

oooOOOoooOOOoooOOOooo

... and now... on to the insanity...

oooOOOoooOOOoooOOOooo

**Arrival and first contact**

There is a bright flash of light, and two women in military style camouflage slowly pick themselves up off the forest floor. Groaning and struggling to get up, the shorter of the two shrugs the large bag off her back and looks over towards the other woman with dark brown hair with purple streaks.

"Meg... Why does this kind of crap always seem to happen to us... That hurt... You ok?"

Meg adjusts her shoulder strap and then checks her leg, looking a little pained.

"... Legs a little sore... must have hit it on something, I should be fine..." She looks around from her seated position on the forest floor and frowns slightly, before accepting a hand up from the pink haired woman. "Any idea where we are Ellie?"

Ellie sighs as she looks around, then starts to dig in the bag she dumped on the ground.

"Sorry Meg... Not a clue... I would say this was Jackie's fault... but she was off base... Right?"

"Think so... Ellie... Remind me again why I let you talk me into joining the R&D?"

She gives Meg a sheepish look "... Because it was safer than battling the Replicators on the front lines?..."

Meg rolls her eyes "And yet we still end up fighting Replicators, dealing with explosions, runaway lab experiments, idiot politicians, alternate dimensions, alien inv..."

Ellie cuts her off "Yeah, Yeah, you win... At least this time it looks like we ended up on a quiet planet..."

Shaking her head Meg can't help but sigh "... Ellie... Rule number 2... Rule 2."

"... Damn it..." Ellie groans and rubs her temples lightly. "...Freaking Murphy's law..."

oooOOOoooOOOoooOOOooo

...Three and a half hours later...

oooOOOoooOOOoooOOOooo

The pair of women are walking side by side and rapidly shooting observations back and forth.

"Well... looks like contacting the base is out..." Ellie sighs.

"... There aren't any other members of our squad within at least 25 miles..." Meg adds.

"... The plants and animal life in the area seems to indicate that we are on earth..."

" I've seen two types of birds that have been extinct on Earth for at least 150 years..."

Finally coming to a clearing in the forest, Ellie spots what looks like fresh tire tracks on the ground.

"...Tire tracks... fresh too..." She mutters.

"... Nature preserve maybe?" Meg suggests

They hear a loud rumbling noise and the crashing of trees being broken as well as the sound of metal on metal and weapons fire.

"... What in the hell is that?"

They both draw rather large guns from the sides of their bags, and start backing away quickly from the area that's not far from them, moments before two huge robots fighting with each other come crashing out of the trees. Ellie notes to herself that they seem to resemble vehicles. One a green army jeep, the other a black and purple jet.

"I think..."

"... That we're in deep shit...?"

"...Yup."

"Get the hell out of here before they notice us?"

"... On the double."

Ellie and Meg's quick retreat is stopped short however, when the purple mech that was fighting appears in front of them with a powered up weapon pointed at them.

"Back off Autobot. Unless you want me to blast the squishies."

They note that it's paying far more attention to the other mech than to them, big mistake.

"Leave them alone Skywarp." The green mech warned, but looked hesitant to do anything that might get the two women hurt.

Meg and Ellie seem to have a completely silent conversation in glances, head tilts, shoulder shrugs and soundless mouth movements.

'Shall we see if the ammo department is as smart as they believe they are?'

Meg pauses '23 Beta?' Ellie shakes her head no, and shrugs her shoulder in the green mech's direction '15 Zeta?' Arching a brow in question and giving a quick nod, Meg can't help but ask 'Why?'

Ellie glances over her shoulder 'It hasn't moved closer since we've been threatened. On three?'

They flip the safety off their guns and Meg starts counting out three with her fingers.


	2. Arrival and first contact part 2

**Bits and Bytes**

AN: Good grief... This was just supposed to be a pile of one-shots and miscellaneous bits of junk writing... I wasn't expecting to actually have this turn out looking halfway like a story, but Meg, Ellie and Hound seem to have invaded my headspace and taken over.

I might actually have to try and find a Beta Reader, a title and write a real summery for this yet...

Oh Primus... Hound... stop bringing me rabid plot bunnies... Ellie... Stop feeding the dang things... No Meg, They are not cute...

Anodythe: Thanks for the review. Glad you like it. You'll get answers for a few of those questions soon, but I can answer the most important one though, how does right now sound... :)

**Arrival and first contact part 2**

Meg held out one finger, and they took aim. She held up a second finger, and they braced themselves and their weapons.

As she held up the third finger, Ellie took action and yelled. "Hey dumb ass! Point that thing somewhere else!" Skywarp made the mistake of looking directly at them and Ellie and Meg opened fire, aiming for what they believed to be it's eyes. The projectiles their guns fired looked and acted more like paintballs than bullets, emptying their guns and coating his optics with them before breaking into a full on run towards the other robot.

As they ran Ellie hoped she made the right decision in running towards the other robot, rather than away from the both of them. Although in hindsight, Egging on the purple one may not have been the smartest thing to do either.

Hound couldn't believe that the two human women had just opened fire on Skywarp and ran, and with what looked like paintball guns of all things. He ran towards the women while shooting at Skywarp, hoping to both distract him and get between them and seeker's reprisal.

Skywarp managed to get off one shot at the fleeing duo, before he started clawing at his optics and screeching in what sounded like pain. Fortunately for Ellie and Meg, Hound succeeded in causing a distraction and the shot misses, unfortunately the impact of said shot behind them was enough to send them flying.

Ellie peeled herself off the ground rather quickly and ran towards Meg, who seemed to be having issues trying to stand. "Meg! Are you alright?" She grimaces as Ellie helps her stand and supports her side as they keep going, although at a much reduced pace. "I think I damaged something in my knee... I'm still good to keep moving." In an unspoken agreement, they move as fast as they can away from both mechs. While the green one didn't seem to want to hurt them, why take chances?

Hound's optics widened in horror as the impact of Skywarp's blast hits just mere feet behind the fleeing women sending them crashing into the ground, and he was quite relieved when they both got back up.

When the seeker started screeching and seemingly trying to claw out his own optics, Hound thought that whatever they used may have taken a few moments to work, but he had to admit it was effective.

Taking one last quick shot at the now screeching seeker, he hoped that whatever damage the women did to Skywarp's optics was enough of a distraction that he could get them somewhere safe, or at the very least, keep them out of harms way until backup arrived.

Meg happened to look over her shoulder as they tried to put distance between themselves and the robots, she noticed the green one had stopped shooting and was rapidly approaching their position.

She knew it was probably a futile attempt to try and outrun something that was at least four times their size even without packs and a bad leg, but damn it, Ellie stood a better chance of getting away without having to help her move.

"I'm just slowing you down, leave me and run." She gets a short, sharp response of "No."

Meg glares at her. "I order you to leave me and run." Ellie let out a rather annoyed snort. "I out rank you, So no. We go together, or not at all."

Cursing vehemently as she tripped on something Meg lost her balance causing her to fall and unable to let go fast enough, she ended up pulling Ellie along with her.

Meg closed her eyes and grit her teeth when she hit the ground, she landed hard on her front and momentarily knocked the breath out of herself. Ellie on the other hand, was able to keep from slamming into the ground, but managed to do something to her shoulder causing her to wince as she tried to help Meg get back up. "Come on, you aren't quitting on me now. I'm not leaving you behi..."

Whatever else Ellie was about to say died in her throat as she looked up with wide eyes at the huge green robot that was now crouched right next to them and reaching towards Meg. She moved in front of Meg and groped at the side of her pack for her gun, her mouth went dry when she realized that she had dropped it sometime during their sprint away from the purple one.

AN2: I may be my own worst critic... but... after three rewrites, I'm still not happy with this. Sigh... Anyone feel like being a Beta Reader?


	3. Arrival and first contact part 3

**Bits and Bytes**

AN: Wow... Now I remember why I don't write more... it's a pain in the ass to get thoughts into words... well... that... and I can't write dialogue worth $#!*

Also: The rating has been upped to Teen for future content.

Disclaimer: The OC's are mine, Nothing else is.

_'thoughts'_

**Arrival and first contact part 3**

Meg's head was spinning as she tried to catch her breath and get back up, without much success. There was a limit to what the light body armour they wore under their fatigues could protect against, full body blunt force trauma was, unfortunately, not one of them.

The pain in her ribs made it rather hard to breathe, and if she suspected that she had bruised them earlier, now she was sure that she had cracked a few with her second impact into the ground.

She knew something was wrong when Ellie went silent, and the only thought that ran through her head was _'Damn it... Ellie, don't just stand there, run...'_

Hound paused when the woman with pink hair placed herself directly between his hand and the woman on the ground while at the same time reaching for the holster on her pack. The somewhat panicked look on her face when she realized the holster was empty, caused him to flinch slightly. Silently he berated himself for assuming that they weren't afraid of him, just because they had run in his direction initially.

"You don't have to be afraid. I'm not going to hurt you." Hound really didn't give Ellie much time to react to his statement as he reached out again.

Much like a deer caught in the headlights, she froze. The passage of time suddenly seemed painfully slow to her. She helplessly watched every movement of the robot as it reached out with both hands, and instead of reaching for her, it reached towards Meg once again. Ellie suppressed a somewhat panicked whimper, and watched with wide eyes, as large metal hands and fingers curled around Meg's prone form and carefully scooped her up.

Meg was tired, one could only run on adrenalin and ignore pain for so long after all. She fought desperately to stay conscious, but it seemed to be a losing battle. Bits and pieces of an unknown voice seemed to filter through the haze. "... don't... afraid... not... hurt..."

The feeling of something metal closing around her was the last thing she felt as she slipped into unconsciousness.

When the woman went limp in his hands, Hound became worried and scanned her carefully noting three cracked ribs and damage to her right leg. While nothing seemed to be life threatening, he wasn't a medic. _'Slag it... I need to get them out of here...' _Being as gentle as possible to avoid doing any more damage, Hound shifted her into a single handed hold and then held out his free hand to the woman still on the ground.

Ellie was so fixated on the hand now carefully cradling Meg, she didn't even notice when Hound held out his other hand out to her. Not until he very gently nudged her legs with it. Swallowing nervously, she stared at the cupped hand being held right next to her at just slightly above her knee height.

Her mind was racing. It was somewhat obvious what it wanted, and Ellie was barely keeping her panic at bay. What was going on? It was giving her a choice? Did she even really have one? She knew that she couldn't out run it, it already had Meg, and it could have just as easily grabbed her too... so... why?

Meanwhile, Skywarp had stopped clawing at his optics and had started shooting blindly in random directions. A blast streaked over Hound's head, and he thanked Primus that Skywarp was not one of the brightest 'cons. Cruel, vindictive and violent, most certainly, but thankfully without direct command and supervision he could usually be outsmarted. Had Skywarp turned on any of his other targeting sensors rather than trying to use his now damaged optics, well, he'd rather not think about that now.

Ellie looked up, startled by the closeness of the blast, and decided to take her chances with the offered hand. She forced down her panic and trembling slightly, very hesitantly climbed into it's hand. _'It hasn't hurt us yet...but...' _Feeling decidedly uncomfortable, she almost wished that the robot would have just grabbed her. If it had, at least it wouldn't have felt like she was handing herself over on a silver platter.

Rather than watch the ground drop away as she was gripped firmly, Ellie closed her eyes and tried to stay calm. _'I can handle this... I deal with aliens, the R&D teams and fight replicators on a regular basis... Hell.. I managed to survive being swarmed by replicators...' _She shuddered_ '...barely... I can handle this...'_

Hound cursed in Cybertronian as he just barely had time to get a safe grip on the woman before avoiding another blast from Skywarp.

Hound knew his limitations when it came to battle, and he considered himself lucky to have avoided overly serious damage when Skywarp had ambushed him earlier. He had only barely succeeded in getting the upper hand before... Now, trying to protect two humans when one, if not both needed a medic... it was time to make a tactical retreat.

All he could do was hope Skywarp was more interested in getting his optics repaired than to giving chase and continuing his attack.

Ellie felt the rapid movement and her eyes snapped open, she jerked her head up to stare at the robots face when she heard the unknown language. _'Oh shit... it?... He? ... sounds irritated...'_

Not caring about either the height or speed at which she was being carried, she pushed one of the fingers holding her in place with every ounce of force she could muster. It didn't move in the slightest, and what she had done by climbing into it's hand was starting to sink in.

Using every ounce of self control she had, Ellie tried to keep from panicking by choosing to believe it was telling her the truth about not hurting them. _'It's not going to hurt us... It's not going to hurt us... It's not going to... damn...'_ She went pale as she realized that, while it might not hurt them, there was no guarantee they'd be let go either.

AN2: Like it? Hate it? Review it. Any and all feedback helps. ;)


	4. Observations and conversations Part 1

**Bits and Bytes**

Disclaimer: I only own my OC's.

_'thoughts'_

**AN:** This was supposed to be G1 cartoon based, but some elements/people/alt modes from the 07 movie and the real world keep sneaking in. It will eventually be explained later, promise. (Sorry folks. If your looking for Barricade, Bumblebee as a Camaro or the Allspark, I'm afraid you won't find them here.)

**FYI:** I know nothing about medical treatment of any sort. Any treatments or medical jargon you see in the upcoming chapters either comes from the net or some weird place in my head.

**Observations and conversations**

**Part 1**

Hound slowed down and checked his surroundings carefully. It had taken him a few hours, with more than a few close calls and near misses, but he had finally managed to give Skywarp the slip. He had been as careful as possible to avoid aggravating any injuries that the two women had, but despite his best efforts, he had to make a few moves that were rather jarring.

He finally came to a stop in an area where the trees were both thick enough, and tall enough to hopefully prevent him being spotted from the air. Unfortunately he found that using his holo-emitters to provide an extra layer of camouflage and contacting the Ark for assistance were not possible at the moment, both devices having been damaged earlier.

Checking over the unconscious woman with the brown and purple hair, he frowned and looked a little worried._ 'I... should get that bag off her... The straps are pressing against her injuries... and have a medic check her...'_ How he would get the bag off without making her injuries worse, or get a medic, was a bit of an issue though.

Feeling more than a little ill, Ellie swore that if they ever made it home, she would never complain about the G force desensitizing flight simulators ever again. When the rapid movement of the world finally slowed and came to a stop, she let out a small groan of relief and muttered quietly under her breath "... Ugh... Not throwing up on the giant robot would be good..."

Hound's optics widened when his audios picked up her muttered comment, noted her nauseated look, and felt guilty for not noticing earlier. _'She looks like Carly did when I picked her and Spike up from the amusement park...'_

That was an afternoon he wouldn't forget anytime soon.

_'... well, hopefully there will be no purging of tanks in my passenger seat this time...' _Hound usually didn't mind getting dirty, most of the time he loved it. He had waved off Carly's apologies stating he wasn't Sunstreaker and that there were no hard feelings, but he went straight for the wash racks as soon as Carly and Spike had left to see Ratchet. For the first time, he had almost outstripped both Tracks and Sunstreaker for the longest time spent in the wash racks.

He sat himself on the ground and gently set the pink haired woman on her feet. She looked a little dazed and stumbled as she took a step, only to be caught gently. She leaned heavily against Hound's fingers in an attempt to keep herself upright, still trying to clear the fog from her head. He very lightly rubbed her back with his thumb, concern evident in his voice as he asked "Are you alright?"

It took a few moments for Ellie to realize that she had her feet on the ground, she stumbled and her knees felt weak as she tried to stay upright. She gazed up at him with a rather confused look, feeling a little strange at the surreal and somewhat dreamlike situation.

Hesitantly she glanced worriedly towards Meg's limp form, before quickly returning her attention to Hound. "... Y...yes...?..." Her answer sounded more like a question than a statement of fact, almost as if she were trying to figure out what he wanted her to say instead of how she felt.

Hound tried to keep her calm by talking to her, but had anyone asked later what had been said, neither of them would have had much of an idea. Sometime during the rather one-sided conversation, while searching through his subspace compartments, Hound had found a couple of forgotten sleeping bags. Remnants of his helping Will and Sparkplug haul some of their old camp equipment to the Ark.

He lay the sleeping bags out on the ground next to himself, hoping that, at the very least he could get the pack off the injured woman and lay her down on her back to relieve the pressure on her ribs and chest.

Ellie half followed his words in a dazed state, feeling somewhat disconnected and slightly numb. She neither bothered to question or contradict him, stuck in a state of disbelief, mixed with a tinge of apathy. Somewhere in her mind the only thought that seemed to bubble up was _'... i... if I do what it wants... maybe it won't hurt Meg...'_

Hound held the other woman out carefully to Ellie, trying to reassure her that they were both safe and he didn't want to hurt either of them. He hoped he could get her to open the buckles on the straps, since he was worried about making any injuries worse.

She had been so absorbed in her thoughts, only bits and pieces of what Hound had said actually made it through to her. "... might ... more damage ... if I... straps ...pressing on... chest ... breathing... open..."

Shaking, she took off her pack and dropped it carelessly on the ground before she hesitantly walked over to the hands now cradling Meg and undid the straps of her pack. Ellie watched Hound's every move with what seemed like a somewhat resigned look combined with morbid curiosity, as she sat down on the sleeping bag.

Hound felt somewhat disturbed that, in her current state she probably would have done just about anything he asked of her. Of course, seeing her watching him with that rather emotionless and partially detached look on her face didn't help either. It was almost as if she half expected him to do something awful to the unconscious woman, as neither of them could really fight back. Needless to say, that bothered him as well.

Ellie watched as Meg was gently relived of her pack and handled very carefully as she was laid out on the other sleeping bag, the pure relief on Ellie's face was completely obvious as soon as Hound removed his hands and moved them away.

She scrabbled over to Meg just as fast as she was able, and lay down next to her as close as possible, holding her hand quite relived that she was still alive and breathing. Ellie was physically, emotionally, and mentally spent. She just lay there, watching the rise and fall of Meg's chest, listening to her breathe and trying not to give in and close her eyes.

Hound watched quietly and stayed still for several long moments, not wanting to cause her to panic again. He noticed her fighting to keep her eyes open, and thought it best to let her rest. Perhaps once she had calmed down, she would be less fearful.

He collected the other sleeping bag and gently covered the two women with it.

Once done with that, he pulled out a small (to him anyways) set of tools from subspace and started to take apart the armor on his forearm in the hope he could perhaps get his long-range communications back up.

**Long-ass additional AN:** If anyone wants to know why Ellie is being so paranoid about Hound, it's got to do with a personal pet peeve of mine. The way some stories have people just automatically trust/lust over the Autobots the moment they meet one, it bothers me.

I mean really, would you trust a person you just met on the street to do surgery on you? What about handing them all your banking information? Trust the guy standing at the corner that you don't know with your child? What guarantee do you have that they aren't going to hurt you or screw you over?

Same theory here.

They have never heard of Transformers, Autobots, or Decepticons. Hell, even if they had I doubt it would make much of a difference.

They really only have Hound's word saying he won't hurt them, they know nothing about him beyond that. How do they know he's not going to toss them in a cage and keep them as pets or something?

Any relationship be it friendship or anything else (humanOCxTF romance ? Nope, sorry, not in this fic...), it takes time to build trust.

You meet something that weighs in excess of four thousand pounds, more than three times your size, and strong enough to kill or seriously hurt you without even trying? Personally, I would be damn paranoid for a very loooong time...

Erk... S'cuse me... /Blushes, ends rant, gets off soapbox and runs and hides...


	5. Observations and conversations Part 2

**Bits and Bytes**

Disclaimer: I only own my OC's.

_'thoughts'_

**AN:**Well, have another chapter... While I can't say I'll be able to keep updating as frequently as I have been, hopefully I'll be able to increase the quality and length of my chapters.

Anodythe: Thanks for the vote of confidence. I was having a bit of difficulty keeping their reactions believable.

**AN2** on 08/17/2011: Did some minor edits to this chapter. Mostly spelling. Apologies if it popped up as an update.

**Observations and conversations**

**Part 2**

Hound kept a sensor on the two sleeping women as he fought for a couple of hours to get his long range communication systems back online. Most of his communication systems had apparently been overloaded at the same time as his holo-emitters, and were probably beyond repair without new parts. He decided to give it a break for a bit and try to run a self diagnostic to see just how badly he was damaged. He used the time to really observe the women that had accidentally gotten caught up in this mess.

At first he had thought them US military sent out to investigate the strange energy signal as well, but quickly ruled it out as there had been just the two of them, not an entire team. They looked to be rather poorly equipped, aside from the guns they had earlier it appeared they had no weapons, also they were missing the now standard distress beacons required by all military teams incase of Decepticon attack.

Besides, Prime had asked Skyfire to check with the US government before they had departed, just to make sure they hadn't picked up on something the military was working on, as well as offer to bring along a few of the human military if they wanted a human presence.

As far as the government was concerned, it wasn't one of their projects, was likely a Decepticon related issue and no human presence was necessary.

After they had scoured the area and found nothing, Skyfire and the others had left. Now Hound was left with quite an issue. He wasn't due to check in for a just under a week as he was due for leave, he had requested and been granted permission to stay behind and spend it in the wilderness. At the moment, he could only hope that he had managed to transmit his location and call for assistance earlier, before Skywarp had fried his communications with a lucky hit.

The uniforms they wore although very similar to what someone in the military would wear, it appeared to be made of a thicker cloth and it also incorporated some type of body armor worn under it. Fortunately whatever it was made of didn't seem to interfere with the breathing of the woman with brown and purple hair, and Hound was relived that she was no longer having difficulty drawing breath with removal of her bag.

He paused a moment when he noted that the woman with pink hair had shifted slightly and revealed a set of patches on the right shoulder of her uniform. There were a number of what appeared to be rank patches, but what caught his attention was the metallic blue circular patch with the words 'United Planetary Alliance' embroidered around the edge in white, and a picture of what he suspected was meant to look like a rater stylized galaxy in the center.

Another look at the other patches he noted that they were unlike any known patches he had ever seen used by humans, or any other species either. Among a few others were patches labeled 'SG-R&D', 'Alpha Squadron', and 'Earth Delegation'.

It was when he noticed the small lettering sitting at the bottom of one of the patches proudly proclaiming 'Est. 2083' He stared at the patch for a long moment, and decided not to think about it too hard at the moment, why add a fried logic possessor to the list of damages? He went back to trying to get his long-range communications working.

It was well past sunset when Meg awoke with a small pained groan, feeling the deep ache in her ribs and someone holding her hand. She kept her eyes closed as she tried to figure out what had happened and where she was. The sounds and smells of the forest made it obvious they were outside, but beyond that she had little idea.

Slowly she opened her eyes and managed to sit up, looking around and carefully extracting her hand from the death grip that Ellie had on it. It was a warm night and the moon was very nearly full providing enough light to see fairly well, and she wondered for a moment where the sleeping bags had come from as they had not packed any.

Meg's eyes opened wide at the sight of the large green robot from earlier sitting on the ground not ten feet from them, and she bit back a startled yelp as everything that had happened before she had passed out came flooding back. She shook Ellie's shoulder lightly, but it looked like she was out cold and Meg was unsure of what to do.

Her ribs ached as she tried to take a few deep breaths in an attempt to keep calm and quietly observed the robot that appeared to have taken no notice of her as of yet, seemingly engrossed in whatever it was doing to it's arm.

It was big, and she had to guess it had to be somewhere around twenty feet or so tall and she was astonished that parts of it seemed to be made of what looked like a Jeep from the late 90's. _'Why would they make something like that out of a museum piece?'_ Meg was somewhat surprised when it put the tool it was using down and in a rather human like gesture, reached up and rubbed the bridge of what looked like it's nose in a gesture of frustration.

Hound had noticed she was awake, but ignored her for the moment as he felt a possessor ache coming on. He had managed to send a short burst of data containing his location, a transport request for himself and the two women as well as a medic before it shorted out again, unfortunately he had no way of knowing if it had been received.

For a moment he forgot he was being watched and muttered quietly "...Primus... Why of all the things that could be damaged, did Skywarp have to get in a lucky shot and completely overload almost every communication relay I have..."

Meg was slightly startled as she noticed just how... alive this robot seemed, to the best of her knowledge they had never encountered anything quite like it.

Replicators, although they were robotic, were nothing like this. While replicators may have some sort of intelligence, they were more like a mechanical plague or flesh eating bacteria, making more of themselves while destroying and killing everything in their path.

She sat there unmoving, her mind reeling, trying desperately to make sense of everything. _'...Just what the hell happened... and where the hell did we end up?'_


	6. Observations and conversations Part 3

**Bits and Bytes**

Disclaimer: I only own my OC's.

_'thoughts'_

_::Internal Com links::_

AN: Wow, look, an update. Hopefully now this will have better flow because I now have a beta. Major hugs and thanks to crescent-moon-demon for agreeing to beta this.

Good grief, I never thought it would take this long to write this. Between the flooding, power failures and evacuation notices in my area, writing has been the furthest thing from my mind at the moment... But I finally managed to get this out. TF con was great for jump-starting the muses, though updates will probably be slow... really slow.

AN2: If you sent me a pm before the upgrade to the ffnet system and haven't gotten a reply, could you please re send it? It appears that the new upgrade to the site killed all my previous PMs.

**Observations and conversations**

**Part 3**

Hound abandoned his attempts at repairing his communication relays after a few quick tries, simply because without replacement parts there wasn't much he could do. Instead, he began reassembling his arm and tried to keep from looking directly at the woman that was watching him quietly. He hoped that she might be less agitated if she believed him to be slightly distracted.

"How are you feeling?..." He tried to keep his voice down in an attempt to keep from startling her and only half looked at her while putting his arm's plating back into place. After all, some humans were rather uncomfortable being around the Autobots due to their size alone, and being watched made some of them rather... twitchy.

Startled by the unexpected question, Meg jumped slightly and winced at the pain in her ribs. Really, she hadn't expected it to try and talk to her. _'... Stay calm, take deep breaths... Ouch... or maybe not... damn... Now what?...'_

Eyeing him somewhat warily, she licked her lips. '_I'm military, I should be able to deal with this... I have training... I... Oh.. Who am I kidding? Like there's training for this!' _With no idea what she should say or do, her voice sounded more than a little dry and unsure when she answered. "...Sore..."

Mentally she added _'... and scared half to death...'_ She tried not to fidget, wondering if even responding to it was a good idea. _' ... well... it's a little too late to change your mind about talking to it now... '_

Hound couldn't help but feel somewhat guilty as he saw her wince in pain. "I'm sorry..."

Meg blinked. Whatever it was she thought she was expecting, that was not it. "What?" The single, confused word slipped out before she could stop it. _'...It... it's ..apologizing?...'_

"... If I had moved faster... neither of you would have been hurt..." She just kind of stared for a moment in disbelief as it spoke. Because really, who knew robots could look, or for that matter, sound sheepish... this was beyond strange to her.

"If you'd been any slower, we would be bloody smears on the ground... I'll take the aching ribs..." The second Meg's brain caught up with her mouth, she slapped her hands over her mouth and went completely still. _'Oh... crap... still might end up as a smear on the ground...' _

Hound couldn't quite stop himself as he turned his head and stared at her with a rather perplexed look. Although fascinated with earth and the life on it, humans still baffled him quite frequently. Animals he understood, people... not so much.

Her face became pale and she started to shudder slightly while desperately trying to gauge his reaction. _'Rachel said my smart mouth was going to get me killed one of these days... I may have just proved her right... Mouthing off to something more than twice your size... bad idea...' _Meg flinched and went completely still when he stopped working on his arm, put down the strange looking tool and turned his head to look directly at her. _'... a really bad idea...' _ She hoped that her rather smart-ass response wouldn't provoke a violent retaliation.

Hound's look of mild confusion quickly morphed into one of concern when he saw her become pale and begin to shake.

Meg knew she was trembling, and it wasn't from just nerves either. Keeping herself in an upright position with her aching ribs was becoming difficult. Her body was telling her to lie down, but she was determined to stay alert.

Why? Truth be told, she wasn't sure. It wasn't as if it would make much of a difference if he were to attempt to kill her and she knew it.

After seeing her waver and nearly topple over, Hound shifted slightly and reached for her, using his hand to carefully give her some support, before she fell over and made her injuries worse.

Even though he was exceedingly gentle and took great care to avoid causing her any further harm, Meg cringed at his touch. Fully expecting that she was about to be hurt badly at the very least.

Ellie woke feeling a little confused and groped for Meg's hand blindly, her eyes snapping open suddenly as she only found empty space. Looking around bleary-eyed and somewhat groggy, she relaxed for a moment at seeing Meg sitting close by.

Unfortunately that relief didn't last long when she saw a very large metal hand reaching towards Meg. Panicking, she looked for a weapon.

Realizing the other woman was awake and looked to be getting upset, Hound attempted to reassure them they were fine. "It's alright, I'm not goi..."

Finding nothing, Ellie grabbed the closest thing she could reach with her good arm and flung it as hard as she could, smacking Hound directly between the optics... Meg blanched and Ellie felt rather stupid when she realized what she had thrown.

Pausing mid word, Hound's optics dimmed a moment in a manner reminiscent of a blink. He couldn't help but raise a brow ridge as he used his other hand to pick up the thrown object between two fingers very carefully.

"Well... You've got good aim..."

There, dangling from his fingers by it's laces, was an army boot. Hound just stared for a moment before chuckling slightly.

"... A boot?..." He glanced over at a nervous looking, but very red faced Ellie. "...Really?..."

He set the boot on the ground near Ellie, and reached up to rub off the muddy print that had been left behind. Seeing the way they were still eyeing him, Hound couldn't help but let out a small sigh.

"C'mon... give a 'bot a break will ya..."

_'It sounds... he's... upset?... but...'_ Meg blinked and looked up for a moment, feeling quite confused, since neither of them had been hurt... _'...It has emotions?...'_

Their team had never had much luck with 'smart' machines, though Meg had to admit she had never seen a machine act so... human. _'...Or at least a good facsimile of them anyways...'_

Turning some to look towards Ellie, Meg paused a moment. She found it quite startling to notice just how heavily she was relying on the support from the large metal fingers to keep herself upright, and just how gentle they were.

_'...well... I suppose I can't keep acting as if it's going to try and hurt us... He's had plenty of time and opportunity to, and he hasn't... but damn it all... this is so fucking strange...' _Meg suppressed a sigh while feeling more than a little odd, and though she attempted to present a calm front, it was still obvious that she was quite leery of the metal behemoth.

Suddenly her thoughts came to a screeching halt. _'Wait... He? Since when did I start thinking of it as male?'_

Meanwhile, Ellie wasn't handling the situation very well at all. Rapidly she went from staring at Meg and the very large metal hand that was between them, to shaking badly and becoming somewhat glassy eyed.

Hound noticed her reaction first and became very concerned, mostly because he had no idea what was wrong. "Are you alright?" He asked quietly, the worry and slight panic in his voice was quite obvious.

For Ellie, having large blue optics looking directly at her was the last straw. She grabbed her injured arm and pulled it close to her body, before curling into a ball on the ground and shaking badly. Meg winced as she saw Ellie panic and withdraw into herself.

When Ellie started to thrash and sob on the ground, Meg let out a few rather colourful words under her breath and muttered in a quiet and worried voice "Damn it... not now..."


End file.
